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Part family biography, part European and Holocaust history, this book traces
the life of violinist Alma Rosé, along with
that of other members of her illustrious musical family, from her birth
in 1906 in one of the world's foremost cultural
capitals to her death in a Nazi extermination camp in 1944. It will be
particularly fascinating and wrenching to anyone
with similar roots. Alma was the niece of the famous composer and conductor
Gustav Mahler, at the time director of the
Vienna Opera, and the daughter of Arnold Rosé, concertmaster of
the Opera Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic and
leader of his own renowned string quartet. Her older brother Alfred became
a noted pianist, conductor, composer, and
teacher. Alma, named after her aunt and godmother, Alma Mahler, was taught
by her father and, both inspired and
intimidated by the family's musical tradition, she became a fairly successful
violinist.

In 1930, she established a girls' orchestra called the Viennese Waltz-Girls,
with which she toured throughout Europe as
conductor and soloist, and which surprisingly had her austere father's
blessing because of the high quality of the playing.
Her marriage to the famous, dashing Czech violin virtuoso Vása Príhoda
soon ended in heartbreak and divorce. Disaster
struck in 1938, when Hitler annexed Austria, whose population welcomed
him enthusiastically; the country's always
latent anti-Semitism erupted swiftly and violently. Though the Rosé
family were completely assimilated and had even
converted to Christianity, Arnold immediately lost his orchestra position
and pension. His wife was ill and died that year,
leaving him stranded financially and emotionally. Alfred and his wife managed
to flee to Holland, England, and
eventually Canada, where he died in 1975; Alma mistakenly thought she was
protected by the Czech passport gained
through her marriage. With dauntless determination, and with the help of
old friends, including the famous violinist Carl
Flesch, she got her father and herself to England only months before the
outbreak of World War II. The Rosé Quartet's
cellist and former principal of the Vienna Philharmonic, Friedrich Buxbaum,
had arrived there earlier; he later joined the
re-formed quartet.

So far, Alma's story parallels my own. Born in Vienna 20 years later to
musical parents who encouraged my violin
studies, I grew up near enough the Rosé house to encounter the illustrious
concertmaster not only on stage but on the
streetcar. We witnessed Hitler's triumphant arrival, but our Czech passports
enabled us to escape to Czechoslovakia.
When Hitler caught up with us in 1939, we, too, managed with the help of
friends to get to England just before the war.
A few years later, I was thrilled to be the violinist in a trio with the
venerable Buxbaum, who still played with the facility
and tone of a man half his age. Here the resemblance ends. While we survived
the war in England and ultimately came to
America, Alma was tempted by performing opportunities to leave the comparative
security of England for Holland, where
her career flourished and she earned enough money to help her father.

She was still fulfilling engagements when the Germans overran Belgium and
the Netherlands; her efforts to get back to
England, or join her brother in America, failed. Staying with friends,
she was almost picked up by the Nazis despite a
hastily arranged marriage to an "Aryan" Dutchman, and in 1942 she went
into hiding, tried to get into Switzerland, but
was betrayed, arrested, and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

From here on, the story takes on a surreal character. Shortly after her
arrival at what has been called "a wound in the
order of being," it was discovered that Alma was a violinist, and, in a
grotesque replay of her past, she was asked to take
over a poor, threadbare musical ensemble of women inmates. By sheer courage,
fortitude, and determination, she turned
this motley group into a viable orchestra, training and coaching the players;
arranging music for its ill-matched
instrumental makeup, from mandolins to sopranos; and driving herself and
her musicians to exhaustion. Gaining
unprecedented stature and exploiting some of the most brutal camp functionaries'
love of music, she saved her musicians
from the gas chambers and also obtained some favors and privileges for
them. Forty years later, one of them said that
there is not a day when she does not remember Alma and thank her. Alma
herself succumbed to an undiagnosed illness,
which deepened the mystery surrounding her.

Author Richard Newman made friends with Alfred Rosé and his wife
in Canada in 1946. The impetus for writing this
book was the publication of a memoir called Playing for Time by Fania Fénelon,
a singer with Alma's orchestra, which
gives a very harsh portrayal of her. Newman's search for the "real" Alma
lasted 22 years and took him around the world.
His sources are family letters, interviews, and correspondence with family,
friends, and surviving members of the
orchestra, lending the book an overwhelming immediacy and authenticity.
Included are Mahler and Rosé family trees,
many pages of photographs, a map of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a list of the
orchestra players. The section dealing with
camp life (and death) is written in an unemotional, reportorial style full
of facts and figures. That approach may have
saved Newman's own sanity, and, by its incongruity with the grisly content,
it both blunts and heightens the impact of the
indescribable, unimaginable details it recounts. This is a book to numb
the mind and sear the soul. --Edith Eisler

Reviewer: Farin Schlussel (see more about me) from New York

I read this book on recommendation after I read Martin Goldsmith's The
Inextinguishable Symphony. This book is an
extremely compelling story about the fascinating and tragic life of Alma
Rosé, a Viennese violinist with a heavy music
pedigree (she was the niece of venerated composer Gustav Mahler and the
daughter of violinist Arnold Rosé) who, in
spite of her efforts to get out and then to stay alive by leading the women's
orchestra in Birkenau, meets her demise in the
revier hospital. The story made me gasp and I had to read several paragraphs
over again so that I could digest what I was
reading. The only problem that I had with this book was that events seemed
very out of order throughout. Little stories
were stuck in here and there that interrupted the flow of the story. What
also surprised me and made me a little angry at
the same time was that there were so many events in Alma's life that can't
be definitely corroborated, including her
behavior as the conductor of the women's orchestra at Birkenau and her
death.

A moving and articulate testament to a most remarkable woman, January 10,
2001
Reviewer: Midwest Book Review (see more about me) from Oregon, WI USA
The niece of Gustav Mahler and the daughter of famed violinist Arnold Rose,
Alma Maria Rose was born in Vienna,
studied at the Vienna Conservatory and the Vienna State Academy, and enjoyed
a respectable musical career. In 1932
Alma formed the first women's orchestra in the country (known as the Vienna
Waltzing Girls) and toured throughout
Europe. With the rise of Nazism Alma, a Jew, was deported to the infamous
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It
was at Auschwitz that Alma's musical heritage came to bear as never before.
She took a group of terrified (and often very
untrained) women and transformed them into the only female musical ensemble
in the Nazi death camps. Their ability to
make music saved them from being gassed by the Nazi captors. Some 40 women
survived the death camps because of
their participation -- but not Alma. She died of an illness in the camps
before they were liberated by the Allies. Alma
Rose: Vienna To Auschwitz is a very moving and articulate testament to
a most remarkable woman. It is a superbly
written and highly recommended addition to any college, university, or
community library biography, Holocaust studies,
women studies, or music history reading list or collection.

An extraordinary book!, May 20, 2000
Reviewer: Russel E. Higgins (see more about me) from Ridgewood, N.J.
"Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz" is a poignant and beautifully related
account of one the most extraordinary women
who ever lived. Alma Rosé, the daughter of the most renowned violinist
of Vienna who was concertmaster of the Vienna
Philharmonic and the first violinist of perhaps the finest string quartet
in the world, was also the niece of Gustav Mahler.
She became a fine violinist and musician in her own right, taking musical
Vienna by storm, and creating a famous and
successful women's orchestra which toured throughout Europe. Soon after
the Nazi takeover in Austria, the Jewish
family left for England where Alma continued to give concerts, playing
even in her father's illustrious quartet. But she
also took the risk of concertizing in Holland. She was trapped by the sudden
Nazi blitzkrieg and takeover of Holland,
tried to escape, was betrayed and caught by the Nazis, and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenwald.
It was at Auschwitz that Alma's
extraordinary life takes on new dimensions: within the death camp, she
creates and directs a women's orchestra
composed not only of traditional symphonic instruments, but also of guitars,
mandolins, accordions, and recorders,
playing arrangements made and copied by women inmates of Auschwitz. Because
of Alma's work at Auschwitz,
hundreds of women were saved from the Nazi gas chambers; in fact, many
survivors contributed to the book through
interviews with the author. This story has been told before, but never
as well as Richard Newman and Karen Kirtley
relates it. Mr. Newman took twenty-two years of painstaking work of research
and interviewing before completing the
book. In the Editor's Note, Ms. Kirtley points out Mr. Newman's "phenomenal
achievement" of talking with "more than
one hundred people able to provide firsthand information about Alma Rosé."
The book is carefully researched with
abundant documentation, a massive bibliography, and appendices which contain
lists of every woman who played in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau orchestra, a background of the Mahler-Rosé family,
a list of every interview that was conducted, and
a "camp glossary" of terms used at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The authors delve
deeply into Vienna's history, culture, and
society, which produced the strong anti-Semitic feelings, and, ultimately,
the welcoming of Nazi troops into the city. A
short review, of course, cannot do justice to the scope and dimension of
this marvelous book; it is a work that every
student of music and European history should read. However, the book will
also appeal to readers without a background
in modern European history, for the book is written clearly and with firm
structure and form. Richard Newman and
Karen Kirley have provided the reader with a remarkable book about an exceptional
woman --- a poignant reminder of
the anguish and tragedy of Nazi Germany and Austria, but also about the
courage and humanity that existed in some
people. This is an extraordinary book.